Page 39 of Blood of the Sirens
“There was glass in your feet. I was seeing to it,” he offered warily, eyes darting from my feet to my face.
Oh. I sat up slowly, noting the large cast of clear gooey stuff down my arms and legs. More of that neat jellyfish stuff, then.
Merrick must have been busy with me.
I closed my eyes, trying to breathe through the flash of panic that came from being stalked in the past. Was I some kind of weirdo who attracted perverts like moths to a flame? I squashed the small whimper that was bubbling up in my throat. Merrick wasn’t like that. He was kind. Respectful. And he had apparently saved me from drowning.
To distract myself from my racing thoughts, I peeled back a layer of the jellyfish bandage on my leg, relieved when there was barely a mark left behind. A small pile of it accumulated by my side as I ripped it all off. I tried not to remember how it had looked, dripping blood everywhere.
“Thank you,” I said softly, knowing Merrick had brought me here and tended to my wounds.
Fuck, it was cold. Goosebumps broke out along my skin and I shivered, trying to curl into a ball and rub myself vigorously to generate heat. My ass was going to go numb in a minute from the ice cold rock underneath me.
Merrick turned and presented me with his back. “Do you mind? I think there is enough left.”
I gasped with shock at the large sheet of glass embedded in his back, up toward his left shoulder blade. Suddenly being cold didn’t seem so important.
“Merrick! Oh my god! Why didn’t you use any of this on yourself? You didn’t need to healeverything on me. Some of them were minor!” I chastised him, even as I carefully wrapped my fingers around the edge of the shard, not wanting any more cuts myself.
“I’ll count to three. Ready?”
Merrick took a deep breath, his hands curling around the edge of the pool, latching onto the rock. He nodded.
“OK,” I said softly. “One, Two—”
“Wait!” he pleaded.
I froze. “What’s wrong?”
His entire body was tense. “Is itonthree, or is it after three? Will you pull it out right as you say three, or you go ‘three,’ wait, then pull it?”
This wasn’t an appropriate time to giggle, but I did so anyway. He looked exhausted; he was clearly in pain, and yet I couldn’t help how analytical Merrick was about everything. Even this.
“On three,” I promised.
Merrick nodded, a bit of the tension in his shoulders releasing.
“OK,” I tried again. “One.” I pulled hard, yanking the glass cleanly from his back before he even realized what was happening. Scowling at it, I threw it down against the stone floor, taking delight in watching it shatter. Didn’t want to throw it against the wall and hurt any of the gorgeous art, after all.
Merrick grunted in annoyance at my trick, glaring at me. Giving it right back to him, I bundled up some of the driedjellyfish compound and dunked it through the water once. Like I expected, it had gone liquid again. I slapped it on his back before he could react, then resumed rubbing my own arms as quickly as possible.
Cold, cold, cold.
He sighed at what I imagined was instant relief and he turned back to face me. He lowered himself to the edge of the pool, resting his head in his arms. My lips thinned as he yawned. He almost looked sick. How far had he swam with me while injured? I tried to put aside the slight bolt of arousal, feeling like a stereotypical damsel in distress for the first time in my life.
It was … nice.
“You … swam me here? How far away from the boat are we?” I had to ask, because I still couldn’t believe it.
Merrick winced at the high pitch of my voice, but I didn’t see how any of this was possible. I was too big to carry like that. And even if I wasn’t, no man would be strong enough to swim far! Not even Michael Phelps!
Merrick shifted uncomfortably in the water “Uh … sea turtles. I found a pair of them and—”
“Let me guess; you lashed them together with hair from your back?” I finished viciously, glaring at him.
He looked incredibly confused. “Well, no. That sounds foolish.”
Obviously he wasn’t a Pirates movie fan.
